


Whatever Universe This Happens to Be

by mizdiz



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M, coping with my own fears through night vale fanfiction, existentialsm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:58:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If I don’t exist,” Carlos finds himself saying. “Then I am so glad that you’re here too, in whatever part of the universe this happens to be.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Universe This Happens to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I suffer from PTSD and clinical depression, with a heaping dose of existential terror mixed in. When I found Welcome to Night Vale, I was really taken with the idea this was the story of a town that encompassed all of my biggest fears, but did it in such a positive light. (Maybe I'm weird, but I've always felt, before the Strex grossness, that Night Vale is a pretty positive place. Despite it all, Cecil loves his town.) Listening to WTNV has helped me tremendously, and makes me look at the world a little better. I kind of filtered those feelings through Carlos, in a one-shot I hope is enjoyable. Comment if you're cool. Check out my WIP Night Vale story if you're cooler. Say hi to me on tumblr at dizzyfeminist.tumblr.com if you're the coolest.

Before Carlos moved to Night Vale he used to be afraid of death.

Or, well, not death, exactly. As a scientist, he recognized death for what it was—biological, universal, and inevitable. He studied the growth rate of various carbon-based life forms, and could explain in detail the stages of decay in a postmortem body. The science of death was not, in the least bit, frightening.

It was the other aspect of death that got to him. Ever a man of science, Carlos only believed that which could be empirically proved. Heaven was too metaphysical a concept for him to latch onto, and after being raised by his severely Catholic abuela, and knowing all the sins she’d accuse him of, the idea of Hell left a funny feeling in his gut. Consequently, he was left pondering his existence on his own terms. On science terms. The neurons that fired throughout his nervous system would eventually cease. Conscious thought was only temporary. The understanding that the entirety of his being was dependent on a meat casing with an unknown expiration date made the hairs on his arm stand on end. It made his face flush. It made his heart quicken. Carlos very much liked existing, but the concept seemed so fallible. How could existence be so easy to lose?

Then Carlos moved to Night Vale.

Night Vale, where murder is up for legal debate, and death is a meritocracy. 

He sits on a bench in Mission Grove Park, watching townsfolk stare and scream up at the sky. There’s a part of him that finds it comical. There’s a bigger part that can’t, for the life of him, grasp the vastness of the Universe and the infinity of space, and understands why someone might scream. He thinks often that Night Vale is only different than other places because here people’s deepest fears aren’t kept secret.

“You’re quiet,” Cecil says from beside him. His dark hand is stroking the underside of Carlos’s wrist. His wild, natural hair is gently blowing in the breeze. He looks at Carlos like he’s a million dollar prize. He always looks at Carlos like that, from the moment they first met, to now. Even still, after all this time, it makes Carlos blush if he’s caught off guard.

“Just thinking,” he says, moving his hand so he can lace his fingers through Cecil’s.

“Oh? Anything interesting?” asks Cecil, staring down at their linked hands like he’s still not used to it. Carlos wonders when the novelty of this relationship will wear off. He sort of hopes it won’t.

Carlos almost says, “no, nothing of interest,” because that’s the socially polite thing to do. But social etiquette, like everything, is different in Night Vale. He reminds himself that Cecil is not one for niceties. He would only ask if he genuinely wanted to know what Carlos was thinking about, so instead of writing it off, Carlos says, “I used to be afraid of not existing.” 

Cecil smiles. “You probably don’t really exist, anyway,” he says kindly, and Carlos marvels at Cecil. He marvels at the fact that this man truly doesn’t believe in his own existence, and can comment on it with a smile. No, more than that. He can offer it up as words of encouragement, as though the idea itself were soothing.

And in a way, it is.

Because there is a Faceless Old Woman who lives in Carlos’s home—she unfolded all of his towels this morning, and put his keys in the back of the freezer, because she was annoyed that Carlos kept trying to deny the fact that she was there. There’s a lady a few blocks away who spends time with angels, and often invites him over to drink tea and eat saltless muffins. There is exactly one working clock in all of Night Vale, and that’s because Carlos brought it with him when he moved in. Carlos ate invisible cornflakes for breakfast, and actually felt well-nourished afterward. Everything—literally everything—Carlos thought he knew no longer is Knowledge. There used to be Truth in the way the world works, he remembers with fondness. Time was linear, radiation killed, and earthquakes that register high on the Richter scale were actually felt by people. 

But not now.

Now, Carlos is rethinking everything he once held as fact. He became a scientist because he liked the comfort of logic, but there is no logic to Night Vale. Night Vale has its own rules. There is a house that doesn’t exist in the housing development of Desert Creek. He knows it doesn’t exist even though he’s seen it with his own eyes. Who’s to say that he’s not like that house? Tangible, physical, but completely and totally unreal?

And that should scare him. That should really, really scare him. The idea that not only is his existence fallible, it also is uncertain to begin with. He gets the inkling of a panic when he thinks about it too hard, his stomach flops around in his belly and his palms begin to sweat. But he never really panics about it. He’s not panicking now. And that’s because of Cecil.

That’s because he’s in love with a radio host whose tattoos wriggle when the two of them kiss. Cecil is many things, Carlos realizes, many wonderful things. He is beautiful—strikingly so. He is kind. Carlos is unsure if there is a malicious bone anywhere in Cecil’s body. Carlos has only seen him act out in anger if someone was threatening Night Vale or Carlos. Or rather, the things that Cecil loves. Because if anything else, Cecil, in his truest form, is loving. 

And Cecil loves Night Vale. He loves the teleporting clock tower, and the hooded figures in the Dog Park, and would love the Man in the Tan Jacket if he could just remember his face. Cecil is happy—so genuinely happy—to live in Night Vale, even though he believes there’s a good probability that he doesn’t really exist. To Cecil, existence (or non-existence) is just another fun and exciting part of the mysteries of life. And as much as Cecil loves Night Vale, Carlos loves Cecil just as strongly. More than that, he trusts Cecil. And it’s hard for Carlos to be afraid of something that Cecil finds so beautiful. 

“If I don’t exist,” Carlos finds himself saying. “Then I am so glad that you’re here too, in whatever part of the universe this happens to be.”

Cecil smiles again. The corners of his eyes crinkle behind his glasses, and his tattoos slither up and down his arms. He is gorgeous when he smiles.

“I told you,” he says playfully. “I told you we’d get you talking like a true Night Valian. It only took a year!”

When they kiss, there is nothing but the two of them. The townsfolk screaming in existential peril have dissipated. The only thing that registers to Carlos is Cecil’s lips on his, and the sudden shallowness of his own breath, as Cecil takes his breath away. He thinks maybe he could die this way, having all the oxygen sucked out of him. It’d be such a gradual and peaceful death, he thinks.

And he isn’t at all afraid.


End file.
